Larry Brody's Guide to Writing for the Medium Everyone Loves to Hate

Larry Brody’s Poetry: ‘Listen’

by Larry Brody

A short one today. Epiphanies are usually pretty epigrammatic anyway, right? And this is as close as I ever get to an epiphany.

Listen

There’s this voice, see, and it keeps speaking to me,

Sometimes at night, sometimes during the day.

Always it’s uncomfortable, with the tone of an

Instrument long unused. It’s awkward, too,

Shrill and urgent, like a car alarm, a klaxon,

Instead of a siren of old.

The way I look at it, a seduction would be much better,

More fun than an alarm.

Want me to do-right-be-right-feel-right?

Great, hey, no problem, make me an offer

I don’t want to refuse.

Be whispery, lispery, overbite-lickery.

Stroke my chest and tangle our limbs,

Nestle near as you can to my heart.

But these orders from within

And frantic Jiminy Cricketry

Just send me running.

They drive me away from the truth.

Larry Brody is the head dood at TVWriter™. Although the book whose cover you see above is for sale on Kindle, he is posting at least one poem a week here at TVWriter™ because, as the Navajo Dog herself once pointed out, “Art has to be free. If you create it for money, you lose your vision, and yourself.” She said it shorter, though, with just a snort.